W W W W  World Wide Web Witness Inc.  Home Page   Contents Page for Volume  What is New

Israel is in turmoil. Barak is being threatened by Sharon that all in his power will be done to remove him from government: for he is dissatisfied with Barak's handling of the growing situation confronting Israel.

Rightly has Clinton indicated that Barak has dealt courageously in some of his decisions. Yielding or ceding ANYTHING of land or opportunity to an enemy who are seeking, it would seem to UTILISE WHAT IS GIVEN to grab, grasp, implode, explode for yet MORE, does not seem, at this time, so much a way of making peace, on their part, as of making war. It might be thought of, by appearances as least, as a combination process of diplomacy and words, in the international forums, where oil and comparative peace in the Middle East helps business and maintains ... order, and besides all that, is ... nice, with what ? There appears a combination of this with  suicide bombings and protests, stones and mayhem in general, civilian woundings and deaths imposed and imparted, in association with threats  of more from the Arab violence organisation, more assailings and assaults or deaths or unrestrained attacks where and as desired; and then something else.

Something else ? Is this not enough ? By no means. This is a mere beginning, an hors d'ouvres, a stimulus. And that additional thing, then, what is it  ?

It is simply that the march on Jerusalem is to continue until those, and their descendants, who left the Jews when they were being remorselessly and pitilessly invaded in 1948, with others, might take the place and add to the religious dimension, their control of the Mount, well, the rest! That is the seemingly clearly stated intention. Thus would they act, so that the capital of the promised homeland might be taken from Jews, at least as a beginning - that they might seize capital power in the land accorded as a homeland for the Jews, by the Balfour Declaration, made on the part of the one then having the mandate, Great Britain - and they might be left with as little and as much from "the international community" as from Hitler (who incidentally did not control the Middle East). Oh! let us qualify that. Hitler would have them with NOTHING INCLUDING LIFE; but these would leave them to have life if they could get it on the hulks turned back from Israel by the British in 1948, the bought hulks of the impoverished and bled community of the Jews, the Belsen returnees who perhaps had not yet suffered enough.

Moreover, it was not that when they had been thrust, as the parlance was, into the sea by their Arab neighbours in those decades of yore, they would necessarily drown. There was no known process whereby, when thrust into the sea, the fledging Israel would be so harassed with U-boats and torpedo boats that every last one would drown. In this it was perhaps... less intense a death than that given by Hitler. On the other hand, their unwelcome status was not minimised in any way, and when thrust into the sea by an enemy, the idea does not include ambulance boats in case you are hurt. So did the British and the Arabs play it together in this sad decline from an earlier righteousness in this matter, in the part of Britain.

Now the Arabs want it back, which they lost, and they do not want mere concessions, such as have been given by Barak to the tune that Sharon wants HIM OUT OF GOVERNMENT! Oh no! Again, as was pointed out so well by the Jewish representative noted in our earlier article on this topic, in the interview for the Lehrer show, it was not as if PEACE being the issue, and CONCESSIONS being the mode, and Israel having made them, the Arab powers were in any way mollified or gratified to the point of PURSUING PEACE, when given the concession. Not at all!

Instead, they had a day of RAGE, as it was called. Called to account for it, Arafat, instead of apologising and declaring that yes, indeed, it was the very nadir of nicety, the lost cause of peace that his people should so ennoble the noble acts of Jewish liberality in the form of concessions, by a DAY OF RAGE in which blood would flow, their own or anybody else's, instead acted otherwise. I, said, he, have NO AUTHORITY to restrain them when they are so enraged! That is nearer to what actually happened, what really was publicly stated by this Arab leader. This, then, it is peace ? It is a peace process ? You broker, Mr Clinton, a round of activities and the Jews concur, and you rightly congratulate Barak for his courage in what he accepted, and deplore that the what ? poor man, is attacked now on ALL sides, as you see this day of rage, and all its accompaniments, military and political. So the mockery goes on.

Certainly the Arabs are not the only ones. Have not the Moslem nations met in their ? what ? littleness of land and poverty ? no, that does not seem apt for the lands of the Northern African borders and vast Middle East hinterlands, and the oil and the oil cartel and its ways. What then ? Have not the Arab nations met in their vast wealth and enormous land coverage to declare unity with the Palestinians, and to condemn the Jewish defence in the most categorical and provocative of all possible terms, by suggesting the UN intervene with a war crimes commission! Yes, in essence, it is true. It is the Moslem power block with its enormous resources which has met in Sharm el Sheikh, to make it clear that they too want for the Arab section of their body, Jerusalem; for if they ENDORSE with unity the Arab, the Palestinian contingent, do they not want what the others want, and is not Jerusalem therefore in effect declared the target of the whole Islam bloc! (cf. SMR's report on the pan-Islam Conference of 1991, pp. 814ff.)

So the tiny slithery slither of land the Jews have retained from that regained in prowess and in miniscule might by positive and in fact prodigious miracle according to prophecy as often indicated on this site (and simply seen in SMR Ch.9), it is not to be left them. They have given back large slabs of what they took to Egypt and made concessions elsewhere, and offered more on various safeguards, but no. It is not good. Not at all! More and more it is almost as if the fleering, searing question were this: How DARE they exist! What impudence to RESIST the take-over bid for MORE than the TEMPLE  MOUNT's administration, MORE than the PRESENCE of a mosque of an alien religion in the very midst and historic centre of their capital! The capital itself, now, cannot be theirs. It is to be marched on. it is to be the capital of some other people. How criminal not to bend over and cede it all!

Now it is true that the US House of Representatives has condemned the actions of this hostility and violence against the Jews to the tune, as a ratio, of around 10 to 1 (over 300 t0 30). It has reproved these PLO incitations, following the kindly Arab declaration that the UN should institute a war crimes trial on ISRAEL (of all people) for their handling of the (what ? deliberate and incendiary provocations continually levelled against a sovereign nation because it will not yield to them its historic capital ?) ... crisis so engendered. Perhaps they should have allowed their people ALL to be murdered, like those two in East Jerusalem, one mutilated as well, and invited the Arabs NOT ONLY to have by their complaisance, the TEMPLE site and the administration of it, but the administration of the site of the capital as well ? BUT OF COURSE! almost seems to come THE REPLY.

Some extraordinary war crimes trial is this, then! Perhaps London should capitulate, even apologise to Germany, and acknowledge that it should really have given itself to Hitler, and indicated its profound regret at having resisted his overtures in the form of the raids on England ?

Despite the world's desires to expatriate the Jews again, and still further, despite the prophesied exploits (as in Zechariah 11-12,  SMR Appendix A) of their regathering after nearly 2000 years of divine censure and displeasure, pending their repentance for the excision of the Messiah from their midst, and their cumulative rebellion against God Almighty: despite all this, this world is intensely, immensely and almost incredibly obtuse. Yet that, again, is the product of unbelief. They seem to imagine - this UN as it dismembers in intellect the Jews from their land (from 1947 on), in part or in this or that respect, and condemns resistance to violence with any rigour, as now it appears - that something which is present is absent.

What is that something ? The term is intentionally diffuse: it is really SOME ONE. The name ? God Almighty. They do not believe in Him, not collectively at any rate ? Certainly one does not often read of Him in their declarations, which sometimes seem to be made as if they had made the earth, and had been born and authorised to administer it . He is simply omitted. His creation is ignored; His people are if not despised, excised from His appointment for them in the Middle East. All others may have what their oil gives; but the Jew is not regarded in his historic and authorised role in the region. Even the comparatively small part of his heritage currently taken, is TOO MUCH!

It is time that people began to think, and think seriously and deeply on this issue. God is and has spoken as has been proved over and over on this site, starting with SMR Chs. 1,3,10 and proceeding in many ways. It is self-attesting, this fact, for what He says not only ALWAYS happens, NEVER fails, but is HAPPENING NOW, and has been this last half century in such a swag of detail and determination, that only the blind could not see (cf. SMR Chs. 8-  9). The events to come will also come, precisely as prophesied. It is very costly to ignore God. He, you see, made all of us, and the world, and has claim extraordinary (Psalm 100). If HE wants part of His world used in a way which is in the scenario of the exhibition of His salvation to mankind - for in His love He so acts that it can be said, that He is "the Saviour of all men, especially of those who believe" (I Timothy 4:10) - then that is His business.

It is true, to be sure, that ONLY those who believe are actually saved as in the New Covenant, and avoid the just condemnation for their sins which is part of God's word (cf. Romans 3:19-31, Ephesians 4:17-19, Ephesians 2:1-13). Nevertheless, in the very restraint with which God these two thousand years has held back the disruption of the very order of our astronomy, our climates and our seasons, and kept on sending missionaries whose feet are declared to be beautiful because of the Gospel which they bring (Isaiah 52:7 cf. SMR pp. 582ff.), there has been a just ground of so speaking. His love is so vast, His mercy so profound, His persistence so amazing, His tenderness so overspreading that His role towards mankind is indeed as Titus also describes it saying,

• "For the grace of God which brings salvation has appeared to all men..." and again,

 
• "But when the kindness and the love of God our Saviour toward man appeared, 
  not by works of righteousness which we have done, 
  but according to His mercy He saved us, 
  through the washing of regeneration and the renewing of the Holy Spirit, 
  whom He poured out on us abundantly through Jesus Christ our Saviour, 
  that having been justified by His grace, 
  we should become heirs according to the hope of eternal life" (Titus 2:11, 3:4-7).

There is however no defence against the Lord! (Isaiah 43:13, 14:27, 8:9-10, Job 34:29, Proverbs 21:30^*1), while the godly may say, "My defence is of God, who saves the upright in heart!" - Psalm 7:10, 97:10-11; cf. Isaiah 4:5 - "Around the glory, there shall be a defence" - canopy, covering. However, the Jews are not, as a nation, yet returned in repentance from their provocations to their loving God, in the thing of the killing of HIS only begotten Son, so that they also are in the midst of the turmoil as clear that they would be, from Zechariah 12-14. The time is near for their deliverance first from their own sins, and then from their assailants, who would disappropriate their land from them.

It is not that land in itself is so very important (Psalm 73:25!), but that the word of the Lord is vital, final, inalienable, undivestible and undeterred. HE has said, and guaranteed both the afflictions of the Jewish nation, for its sins (as in Leviticus 26 and Deuteronomy 28ff., esp. 32:23ff., and that cumulatively including their removal from the land), and their later deliverance (as quoted by Paul, for example, in Deuteronomy 32:43, cf. Romans 11), when they lose what the apostle terms their 'blindness' (Romans 11:25). Indeed, the precise nature of the case to come is outlined in its very atmosphere (Deuteronomy 32:36ff.).

It is all very poignant and very deep, on a vast canvas, where the painter is God. Man paints in the colourful additions of sin, but God has His hand on the outcome.

What He has said, will be. The world is very able to dissociate Him from His world and His land, and His apportionments! Very well, Revelation 19 awaits. Before then, there is much more to come in grabs for the land (cf. SMR Appendix A and pp. 502-519): it is, after all, an emblem of the historical control over this world of the Almighty. Therefore, despite ANY amount of injustice, of unfeeling disregard for the Jewish people, any amount of discrimination against their tiny tenure in the Middle East on the part of the desires of Islam to add this (cf. Islam in Errors), this also to its armouries of land and power: there is a massive cost for this new rebellion.

It will come as all else has come. It is sad, amazingly sad, for the Arab and the Moslem, religion apart, is to be loved as all others, and mankind is the target for the mercy of God; but when this mercy is despised from the hand of the giver, and He is remodelled, then of course, it does not reach to its target. It is not that God has failed continually to broadcast His word by many means for millenia, an activity Christ indicated MUST occur before the end and His own return as King (Matthew 24:14,29ff.). It is not that one loves the less what is in revolt against the Lord, for its sufferings, but that it is so needless, doomed and grievous. It is like drugs: one does not dislike the addict, but the rather mourns for him!

What is it like ? It is like someone being offered a cheque by a generous banker; but the more he offers it, the more the would-be recipient goes to ANOTHER BANK which is in fact bankrupt. Not thus CAN it be received: FOR there is no other name under heaven given among men, by which they MUST be saved (Acts 4:11-12), but that of the Lord Jesus Christ. THAT is because He IS the only begotten Son of God, and before that He always was the I AM, whose goings forth have been from eternity, the eternal word of God (Micah 5, John 8:58, John 3:16, 5:19ff.). Gods who do not bow to Him are not only idols, but false (Psalm 96). What is false, alas, one says it in all sadness for mankind, this being unreal, it cannot save. But HE ? He is "mighty to save" as we see declared in Isaiah 63:1-4, in the last times, there pictured in His saving acts for His people.

It is the souls of man which matter; but the word of God has that way of doing what it says. It is wise to listen; for the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom (Proverbs 1). There is much more. But there is NOT LESS! He is very wonderful, but not to be trifled with, our Creator, our King and our Lord. ALL of us must bow before Him, and will (Philippians 2:1-10); but now, doing it voluntarily is recognising love where it is, and mercy where it may be found:

"Seek the Lord while He may be found,
Call upon Him while He is near.
Let the wicked forsake his way,
And the unrighteous man his thoughts,
Let him return to the LORD,
And He will have mercy on him;
And to our God,
For He will abundantly pardon.

For My thoughts are not as your thoughts..."

(from Isaiah 55:6-8).

God declines to have man speak for Him. He must be found where He is.
 
 

*1
These verses repay study.
Let us see them:

1) Job 34:29

"When He gives quietness, who then can make trouble ?
And when He hides His face, who then can see Him,
Whether it be against a nation or a man alone ? - "

2) Proverbs 21;30

"There is no wisdom or understanding
Or counsel against the LORD."

3) Isaiah 8:9-10

"Be shattered, O you peoples, and be broken in pieces!
Give ear, all you from far countries.
Gird yourselves, but be broken in pieces;
Take counsel together, but it will come to nothing.
Speak the word, but it will not stand,
For God is with us."

4) Isaiah 14:27

"For the LORD of hosts has purposed,
And who will annul it ?
His hand is stretched out,
And who will turn it back ?"

5) Isaiah 43:13

"Indeed, before the day was, I am He;
And there is no one who can deliver out of My hand;
I work, and who will reverse it ?"
 

• Who is this who speaks ? It is "the Holy One of Israel", "the LORD, your Redeemer". 
  And who is the Redeemer ? 
  It is the one who will "justify many, For He shall bear their iniquities" (Isaiah 53:11), 
  and who is that ? it is the One surely covenanted through David, even the Messiah (Psalm 2, 72, Isaiah 11), whom the peoples disregarded, but whom the LORD vindicates, for His name is His own (Zechariah 14:4-9, Isaiah 48:16), and it is one! 
  
  There is simply no other Saviour but the LORD (Isaiah 43:10-11), 
  and this is the Saviour (Psalm 22, Psalm 2:10-12, Zechariah 3:9, 2:8, 6:12-13, 12:10). 
  Who then is this child to be born, predicted from Isaiah 9, 
  whose is the kingdom and its abundance for ever ? 
  It is the Messiah predicted by Daniel, to die in the reigon of AD 30, as we now know it (SMR pp. 886ff., 943ff). There is no other one. It is He! (cf. John 8:24).